Next (Front-Lighted) Kindle to Launch in July?

It looks like that front-lighted Kindle rumor I reported on last month is going to come true. Reuters is reporting that Amazon plans to launch the new Kindle in July 2012. There aren't any hard details yet on specs or price, but the original source is quite specific that the new Kindle is going to be released 2 months from now.

I believe it, but that's not all that is coming.

Reuters is also saying that a new and larger Kindle Fire is coming around the end of the year. Speculation suggests that this KF will have an 8.9" screen. One other detail passed along by the source is that the lighted Kindle won't have the Triton olor E-ink screen that so many have rumored (I told you so).

But I do believe the lighted Kindle is coming. If there's one thing I've noticed in my 2 plus years of bogging it's that B&N and Amazon see each other as not just competitors but the one who must be thwarted at all cost. if one lowers prices, the other responds in kind. Last fall they even competed to see who could get the new devices out the door first - so much so that the KF and NT shipped the same week.

Given that the Nook Glow has already shipped, I expect Amazon to doing their darndest to get the lighted Kindle out the door. Each day that they fall behind is another day that they go slightly more nuts. In fact, I expect the lighted Kindle to ship sooner than July. I'm also half expecting Amazon to aim for announcing the new Kindle at BEA 2012. That is when a lot of attention will be focused on ebooks.

Of course, it might not ship until later, but I do expect the announcement to happen early.

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Nate Hoffelder

Nate Hoffelder is the founder and editor of The Digital Reader. He has been blogging about indie authors since 2010 while learning new tech skills weekly. He fixes author sites, and shares what he learns on The Digital Reader's blog. In his spare time, he fosters dogs for A Forever Home, a local rescue group.

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9 Comments

burger flipper14 May, 2012

they add the flexible (harder to break) screen and they have my money (first time I’ll be forking over to them for hardware)

One of the good features, with the new lighted nook, which is often overlooked, is that it includes the power adapter/charger which the original nook does not. That makes sense because it uses much more power and will not last as long. That gives it some forgiveness on the higher price. That will push Kindle to also include a charger with their lighted product.

When I want to buy these products, I want to have everything included, power adapter and case. Of course, the retailers of these products would be annoyed as this is where they make the big bucks.

With the power adapter and the kindle ereader, I do not need a computer.

Yes, I really do need a computer with the Kindle, as technically speaking, these ereaders are computers because they have a processing chip. On the rare occasions, I needed to download and side load an upgrade–then an “external” computer would be needed. Of course, a router which broadcast the wifi and the machines which broadcast 3G are computers.

You probably need another computer to manage your kindle online, but I think one may be able to do it from the device browser–but that browser is rudimentary. I do not think you can borrow library books without a computer.

One can buy all the books from Amazon and directly download to the Kindle–that is why the kindle is cheaply provided , to entice you to consume their products. However, since I do not buy any books, I am not the customer they want. I have found that I can download thousands of free books and documents direct from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks and Mobile Read websites. There may be many more. It is interesting that when I try to download html from Gutenberg, it loads the online reader–and it it easy to read the book. Now that I have the power adapter/charger, it is rare that would need to go to my “external” computer.

Your moniker is very appealing. I read many type of books and I have enjoyed much from The Sturm und Drang period of Germanic Literature and we all have enjoyed the music that has come from that time.